The Solstice Bride Read online

  “Um, I dislike being called ‘princess,’” Ravenna corrected him. She hadn’t heard anyone say her full name before. How did he know it? Oh, right. He knew me as a baby.

  “Of course, you don’t,” the elder priestess said. “I prefer to be called Tami. How would you like to be addressed?”

  “Ravenna is fine, thank you. I’m terribly sorry to impose on you.” Ravenna was grateful for Tami’s kindness and lovely manners in this odd place.

  Andi rolled her silver eyes. “Really? Are we going to be frightfully correct?”

  “It’s just basic civility, Andi. There’s not a lot of it left these days,” Tami said.

  “I, for one, extend no courtesies to the bastard welp of the Bitch Queen,” Andi snapped and threw herself on the bed.

  For a moment, Ravenna was struck speechless. She was used to insults—usually whispered behind her back. But to hear the queen openly disparaged … well, that was breathtaking.

  “You’ll have to pardon Andi,” Falke said. “She’s under the impression that being rude to people is a form of conversation.”

  “Up yours,” Andi snarled with no real heat.

  Tami put up her hand. “Friends, let’s keep things calm, if only for my advanced age.”

  “Sorry,” Andi muttered as she sat up. But Ravenna could see she meant it.

  “My apologies,” Falke said with a head bow.

  Tami nodded her acceptance. She shot Ravenna an amused look.

  Ravenna thought, Does she want me to notice how she controls them? Or that she doesn’t take their hostility seriously, and I shouldn’t either? I’m not sure.

  “Now, perhaps you’ll explain to me why you brought Ravenna here, at this time,” Tami said.

  Falke leaned against the table, arms folded across his chest. “As you know, I had no intention of involving your operation. However, when Ravenna told me she’s to be initiated on Midsummer’s Eve Night, the Goddess spoke directly to us.”

  “What did She say?” Andi looked genuinely curious.

  Falke said: “‘Run.’”

  “Actually, She shouted it. It was quite frightening,” Ravenna amended.

  Tami paused for a long moment, considering. No one interrupted her. Finally, she said, “How extraordinary.”

  “I thought so,” Falke said.

  “And She didn’t say anything until Ravenna mentioned the initiation?” Tami asked, staring off into space.

  “No,” Falke said. “But recall that Ava said the Goddess cannot see what Morgaine is doing, only the results.”

  “That’s weird,” Andi said.

  Falke explained, “Twenty years ago, just before the Healing ceremony, we were attacked by Morgaine’s people—the Cult of Hela. As the priestesses were immolated, the leader said something to Ava. That’s when she realized what had happened.”

  “Which was …?” Ravenna asked, wondering if his mad story were true.

  “Morgaine had her followers explode the nuclear device that destroyed London. And the Goddess couldn’t stop her,” Falke said.

  Ravenna gasped.

  “I always wondered who blew up the city,” Andi said. “But why?’

  “To bring about the confrontation with the reincarnations of King Arthur, Merlin, and Priestess Anya,” Falke said. “Morgaine must have felt strong enough to take on whatever the Goddess had prepared.”

  “And Priestess Ava wasn’t strong enough?” Ravenna asked. How could a Goddess not foresee how to defeat one of Her creations?

  “It’s … complicated,” Falke said, looking pained.

  “Great,” Andi said, shoving off the bed. “And that self-same bitch rules my country now.”

  “No. Be very clear about this,” Tami said. “Ava was taken over by Morgaine. I foretold it when I met her at Drunemeton Chapel.” Tami got up with her empty cup. “Poor Ava.” Tami paused midway to the hob. Her body shivered and bent like a reed in the wind. A sudden dagger of black assaulted her aura about mid-thorax.

  “Tami!” Falke helped her sit back down. “Are you all right?”

  “Would … would you make the tea, Younger Brother? I’m not up to it this moment.” she said.

  Andi stood behind Tami, waving her hands in a stroking motion inches from the elder’s back and shoulders. Ravenna saw tendrils of her aura merging into the dimming violet of the old priestess.

  Falke brewed the tea, then filled a tray with sugar, ersatz creamer, and fake lemon. He brought it to her, holding it while Tami served herself with hands that still trembled.

  “Are you all right?” Ravenna asked.

  “Don’t make that face at me, young lady. I’m only dying,” Tami said. Her lips twitched up despite her still-pale face.

  “What is it?” Ravenna asked.

  “Besides being eighty-two and living in a shipping crate? Pancreatic cancer,” she said.

  “Why don’t you go to a med-center? Cancer is easily treatable,” Ravenna said.

  Tami chuckled tiredly. “I’m wanted on forty-three counts of sedition against the Crown, dear. I can’t go anywhere they’d check my ID.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ravenna said, wondering what else there was to say.

  “That’s enough, Andi dear. Don’t exhaust yourself,” the elder priestess said. Her aura was stronger, but Andi’s had diminished.

  Andi stepped back. “I wish I could take this from you.”

  “I would never let you,” the older woman said.

  “Well, it’s been an eventful day. I think we should find quarters for our guest and turn in,” Falke said.

  It was just past midnight, but Ravenna knew he was saying it for the benefit of the elder priestess. “Yes, I’m rather tired.”

  “Let me help you to bed,” Andi said to Tami.

  “I’ll take care of myself,” Tami said grumpily. “Why don’t you see to Ravenna’s needs? Falke, I’d thank you to stay and talk a bit.”

  Andi shot Falke a look but went over and kissed Tami on the cheek. Ravenna was unsure what was expected and hung back. But Tami extended her arms out to Ravenna, so she hugged her. Ravenna smelled an odd mix of rosewater, tea, and something she could only describe as illness. Ravenna was rarely touched by others, but Tami’s hug felt remarkably loving, coming from a sick stranger.

  “You are welcome here, Ravenna. We will cherish and care for you as our own,” Tami said as she released her

  The warm words brought tears to Ravenna’s eyes. “Blessed be,” she whispered.

  But what will happen to these people when the queen finds me?

  Chapter Five

  Falke

  “I will only discuss this with you if you lie down,” Falke said.

  “The problem with being an ill old lady is everyone orders you around,” Tami grumbled. But she offered her arm to him so he could help her out of the chair and escort her over to the bed.

  Falke helped her slip under the covers. He plumped up her pillows so she could sit up. “I never thought to see those quilts again.”

  “The first time we ever spoke together, we talked about the textiles,” she said, reaching up and stroking the nearest quilt depicting fall lovingly. “You were five, I think.”

  “I remember,” he said, smiling. “I said something like, ‘Oh, someone made a mistake. They put coverlets on the walls, and they don’t even match!’”

  They chuckled together.

  “We’d just installed these art quilts on the opposing walls of Drunemeton Chapel. My wife, Allison, finished them that winter, and I was so very proud of them.”

  Falke said, “You explained that they were a lesson. One set displayed the strange way Western thinking had been twisted, like the seasons. That one started with winter and went through to fall. But the others,” he touched it tenderly, “showed the Goddess perspective: spring to winter—birth to death.”

  Tami chuckled. “And I recall how outraged you were that anyone could be so stupid not to represent the seasons in the Goddess way. You were quite vexed about i
t!”

  Falke felt a flush rise in his cheeks. “What happened to the other set?”

  “I sent it along to Allison’s family, after she was disappeared, and the queen’s people forced me to shutter the chapel.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s been so hard for you here, hasn’t it?” he asked.

  “If you’re going to feel guilty about leaving the country while you were under threat of imprisonment or death, you can get right over it, Falke Drunemeton. I’ve no time for mopey adepts!”

  Falke had a flashback to the day he was evacuated. He’d just turned seventeen. Two priests from the Sisterhood had come to take Falke from Cardiff Castle. The haunted look on his father’s face in those last moments was etched into Falke’s mind forever.

  Dad said, “You must go with them, son. Stay away from Britain. Learn all you can. Forget about me.”

  “But where will you be?”

  “I have to stay here and face my punishment.” Tears stood in Dad’s eyes. “I broke faith with the king—sired a child with his wife!—and I must pay for that.”

  “But, Dad!”

  His father had gripped Falke’s arms. “Understand this, son. Queen Ava is Morgaine. What Ava warned us might happen, did. Morgaine took her over during the Healing.”

  “Let me stay here and fight her!” Falke had argued.

  “Then Morgaine will win.” His father had straightened and wiped his eyes. “She has all the power now. There’s nowhere you can go in Britain she won’t find you.”

  “I can’t leave you here to be thrown in prison!”

  “You pledged to Ava that if the worst happened, you would go and study and find a way to defeat Morgaine. You told me about it,” Dad reminded him.

  “Yeah, but …”

  “No, son. You must do as you promised. You’re our only hope. The Goddess will make things right through you. I know it in my heart. I have to believe it, or I couldn’t face what comes next.” Dad had turned away, and Falke heard a stifled sob. “I can stand anything so long as I know you are safely away from this.”

  Falke hugged Dad harder than he ever had. He felt his dad kiss his cheek.

  “I love you. Never forget that,” Dad said, stepping away. “Now go.”

  Falke had never seen his dad again.

  Falke cleared his throat and said to Tami, “All right then, I won’t apologize for leaving the country. But I will for having brought Ravenna here.”

  Tami grumbled. “Before today, where did you think you were going to take her?”

  “I thought I would take her away from the Temple on Midsummer and go directly to get the artifact.”

  “And then what?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Falke admitted.

  “You were always going to bring her here, and I knew that when you arrived,” Tami said. She looked up at the quilt. “I’m just glad to have lived long enough to see her.”

  “What can I do to ease your pain?”

  “Nothing at all. It is what it is.” She smiled thinly. “Now tell me. All of it. From the moment you met her until you came here.”

  Falke related everything, from his careful path along a surveillance-less corridor Andi had drawn for him that morning, to encountering Ravenna, and all they’d spoken about. “As we were just about to step out of the park, I heard the queen shouting my name,” he finished.

  Tami closed her eyes. “Well, that’s regrettable. But not unexpected.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Her golden eyes snapped open. “Did you think you could simply sweep in and take the girl?”

  Falke shrugged and sat back on his heels. Actually, yes.

  “Queen Ava is the most frightening autocratic ruler humanity has ever faced,” Tami said. “She has psychic power the likes of which has never been measured. And she is Britain’s absolute monarch: she disbanded Parliament, and only her puppets stand for positions like mayor and the like. Her security squads and electronic surveillance are quite thorough. It’s said that she’s strong enough to be able to sense the thoughts of others many hundreds of miles away. Do not imagine it will be simple to get the girl out.”

  Falke swept his hair back from his forehead. “Dear Goddess. How were we so stupid to think it would be easy to get her out! What can we do?”

  After a long while, Tami said, “It’s clear something is going to happen on Midsummer that involves—or involved—Ravenna’s investiture as a priestess. Your job just got a lot harder, Younger Brother.”

  Exhausted, Falke crawled into the shipping box in the compound that had been his home while in London. He’d slept in worse. At least it wasn’t open to the steady British rains.

  This is not going the way I expected. Not at all.

  He hadn’t anticipated he’d be so over-awed by Tami. He’d adored her when he was a child. But now, his respect for her was colored by her bravery in the face of a terminal illness. He was impressed by the way she had formed a resistance movement, unaided. He was so moved by her sharp-tongued wisdom. So rattled by her clear-eyed assessments.

  In some ways, she’s like a family member. My last link to home, back when things were somewhat normal. When I had a family and lived in a funny big house with mysterious but not frightening things happening all the time.

  And then Ava came and blew that all to hell.

  He shook his head, deliberately dispelling the thought. You’re getting Priestess Ava confused with Morgaine. It was Morgaine who caused the car to crash, killing Mom and baby Freya. It was Morgaine who destroyed London, triggering The Time to Come. Ava was merely a flawed, kind woman who saw what had to be done and did it—even though it meant her death. She tried.

  She failed. And all because she didn’t understand one key issue.

  If only I’d been in the Circle that day!

  With a sigh, he put his personal ruminations aside. It was time to check in with the Sisterhood’s Motherhouse, and he knew it wouldn’t be pleasant. Falke turned his head and twisted his neck a bit to the left, activating the secure link embedded in his skull. He hadn’t wanted to let them install it, but the Sisterhood Leadership demanded he do so. There hadn’t been much choice.

  “Falke Drunemeton, checking in,” he sent mentally.

  “Falke. It’s about time,” replied a female voice he recognized as belonging to Kweetoo Tsose, one of the top members of the Sisterhood Leadership. “Report, please.”

  Falke explained all that had transpired, being careful to describe all the sensations he’d experienced at the Goddess’ command and when he’d heard the queen’s voice. He finished, “So now, I have Ravenna nearly a week too early, in Tami’s camp. I have no idea what to do next, and not one clue how to get her out of London at the proper time.”

  There was a long silence in return. Falke knew that she was meditating, or in some other way seeking an answer that he could not see himself. Leader Kweetoo was almost as powerful as Ifijioku, his late teacher.

  Falke’s lids got heavier as the silence stretched on. And then the dream/memory he had almost weekly began:

  It was almost two years after Falke had been evacuated from Britain. He’d roamed the world, studying with whomever Ifijioku—the Sisterhood elder priestess and his personal tutor—sent him to. He’d been assigned to the Australian outback, learning about the Dreamtime with an Aboriginal shaman, when the news reported that disgraced Prime Minister Harper Drunemeton had been executed for the rape of Queen Ava.

  Falke deliberately overdosed on the dream-hallucinogens in his anger and grief.

  As he lay there, his life flowing out, feeling the mote of his spirit begin to detach from his body, his dad had appeared—but not the man he’d known. It was a being of light and colors with no real definable edge. Falke’s heart had recognized the essence of his dad at once.

  Falke felt his soul captured and stopped before leaving its mortal shell. Let me go! he demanded. I can’t live without you!

  The being said gently, You have other paths to walk. Do
not let your grief drive you to end this important task you do. So very many depend on you.

  I can’t bear it! I don’t want to save anyone! I just want to be with you!

  You would let our country—our world—fall into darkness? That doesn’t sound like you, exclaimed the being.

  I just want you back. I’ve lost everyone I ever loved—lost my home and my country. I can’t go on! I can’t, Falke pleaded.

  I am asking you to be brave. To do that which you pledged to do. To trust the Goddess to lead you to right action. When you have trained enough, when you have acquired the power, then you must discover how to defeat Morgaine.

  It’s too much, Falke said, so tired right down to his bones.

  Do you truly want to be with me again?

  Yes! More than anything! Falke yearned to connect with the being.

  Then you must defeat Morgaine and return the timeline back to what should have been. We will be back together again, just as you want.

  Falke had felt cornered. The only way I can get you back is by doing what I am ordered to do?

  Yes. Promise me you will do what is needed, son.

  Reluctantly, Falke had said he would. The next moment, he opened his eyes to see the painted face of the Aboriginal shaman. “Thought we’d lost you, mate. Did you find what you were looking for in the Dreaming?”

  “I spoke with my dad.”

  “It’s powerful to walk with dead family in the Dreamtime. Do not speak of it to me. It was for you only.” The shaman helped Falke sit up, observing him closely. “We thought you were in the Dreamtime permanently, but the Sisterhood knew better. I just got a message from the Motherhouse. Your study with me is over. They….”

  “Falke!” the demanding voice of Leader Kweetoo jerked him back to the present.

  “Yes, leader. Sorry. I dropped off. It’s been a long day.”

  “I’m sorry, but I have meditated, and I do not feel called upon to any action. This must be as the Goddess wills, or it would not have happened,” Kweetoo said.

  “I am uncomfortable with that assessment, Leader,” Falke said, trying to put into his thoughts as much respect as possible. Leader Kweetoo had a famously quick temper when challenged. “Recall that High Priestess Ava discovered that the Goddess cannot see what Morgaine is doing.”